Lesson 4: Verbs. Or, prepare to die with huge suffering
The pronouns - who are you? (Canada dayo~)
Now we know how to indicate a noun with an article. Before going deeply in the grammar, we will study verbs. So we can make simple phrases.
And even before it, let's simply translate the pronouns.
I -> io
you -> tu
he -> lui
she -> lei
it -> esso
we -> noi
you -> voi
they -> essi
Easy, uh? In Italian the person is not needed before the verb when talking (or writing) to someone, but can be very useful for foreign people.
How to compose a verb
Italian verbs are the thing you will hate most, and you will make so much errors... When a foreigner visits Italy, is common that he talks using the infinite form of the verb with the person before it. Like, "I eat pasta" for him will becomes"io mangiare pasta". That is incorrect, but he will be understood.
First thing first: when you want to conjugate a verb, you need to look at his infinite. Every verb ends with 3 different desinence: -are, -ere, -ire. Depending on the desinence, the verb will be treated in different ways. Obviously, there are irregular verbs: like essere (to be) and avere (to have), they're totally something else.
Let's look at the present time for now, of the regular verbs. I will write to you an example.
Simple present
mangi-are (to play) ved-ere (to see) dorm-ire (to sleep)
io mangi-o ved-o dorm-o
tu mang-i ved-i dorm-i
egli mangi-a ved-e dorm-e
noi mangi-amo ved-iamo dorm-iamo
voi mangi-ate ved-ete dorm-ite
essi mangi-ano ved-ono dorm-ono
As you can see, there are bit differences between some persons, but the ending of every verb will be the same for every other that ends with the correspondent desinence. So, every verb that ends with -are, will be like the example mangi-are.
To form every verb (exception made for irregular verbs of course), take the infinite form (mangiare) and take out the last three letters (-are), to see what kind of verb it is. You will have the verb's root (mangi-). Se the table I wrote above, and you can write everything! (^_^)/
In the next lesson, we will see the other times of the verbs.